Jets at Dolphins: Trading Places

So, which team is favored to win at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday ?  Surely, it's the team that finished with ten wins a season ago, whose coaching staff returned largely intact to start the season and whose roster is littered with former Pro Bowl players. No? You mean it's the team that finished with ten losses in 2015, who dismissed two coaches (one of whom was an interim coach) in a four month period and whose rookie head coach is the youngest in the National Football League ?

What a difference a year makes. Many observers picked the New York Jets to contend for one of the wild card spots this season, while only the most optimistic of supporters could have envisioned Miami knocking off the Steelers and Bills in back to back games.  Dolphins head coach Adam Gase has seemed to be pushing all the right buttons the past few weeks, and Miami appears to have both the horses and a soft enough schedule to challenge for the fifth or sixth seed in the AFC postseason picture.

Meanwhile, the team from Gotham has fallen on hard times. The Jets have managed to win just three games so far this season, against five losses,  and the always bloodthirsty New York media is already calling for head coach Todd Bowles' scalp. If the Dolphins, as expected, beat the Jets on Sunday to leave New York at 3-6 with just seven games remaining, it will difficult to envision the Jets qualifying for the postseason this year.

An interesting aspect of Todd Bowles' tenure as the Jets head coach is that, like his formidable neighbor to the North, Bill Belichick, many Dolphin fans are hard pressed to correctly spell Bowles' name, tending to call him 'Todd Bowels'. But, is this really just an error in spelling or something more on the order of a Freudian slip ?  Perhaps we really are intending to call him Todd Bowels, based on our overall opinion of the team in green and white from New York. While the Jets boast the league's top rushing defense, giving up only 74 yards per game, their offensive output could well be described as, well,  'constipated', at 22nd overall. Whether your preferred laxative is Phillips' Milk Of Magnesia, Ex-Lax or Metamucil, here's to hoping for an exciting, clean and injury free game for both teams on Sunday.